Advice

To answer all the related questions, here we go:

1) dxdiag reports all tests successful.
2) AGP set at 8x but I've had it like that since day 1 of the card, well more than 8 months ago. I'm going to set it at 4x just to see though. Aperture is 256 (mirrored to amount on card, since it's huge anyways).
3) The WC3 video test program came back flawless, 75 BOGOFPS on D3D, 2700+ BOGOFPS on OGL.
4) Heat seems ok from the card. MB is at 100F and proc is at 164 (which I thought was fairly high but all my fans are working, video included. Time for more thermal grease it seems!).

Power supply is a 600w and it's held up fairly well...I'm wondering if it's the lead to the video card itself...will try tonight. Nothing else is overclocked at all...

muert0, sounds to me that power supply is A: too low for your setup and B: probably not a true power supply (as far as true power is concerned). I'd recommend at least a 450w True (Antec, ThermalTake, Ultra, Enermax, etc)...

164F is rather hot.....................try an exhaust fan as well (fits into an expansion slot space) and use silver thermal compound, not the white crap. It is about 20x (2000%) more efficient!

You said you "re-installed" was that a format and full re-installation?

Have you re-installed the games themselves?

Also try cutting down your start up and running processes to a minimum, then try the games and see if it makes a difference, In particular make sure that there are no autoupdate proggys running.

Muert0....................that does not sound like enough power, and with cheaper PSUs that "305" might only be 275 in real terms. OK for the internet and "office" type apps, but not for gaming :(

Why?............one word.........."marketing"...........people think that they know the difference between 512 and 1024 of RAM, between a 2.8 and a 3.4 processor, between a 120 and a 160Gb HDD, so you can save manufacturing costs on the MoBo and case..............and a lot of the case cost is the PSU?

Ok, here's another bit of info:

1) clean format of the 120gb SATA drive (not the quick format from XP's install either).
2) installed XP.
3) installed SP1 from the security CD I got from MS a while ago.
4) installed DX 9.0b from the same CD.
5) installed ATI 4.9 Catalyst drivers (proven good prior to this whole event) w/o Control Center.
6) installed Warcraft 3 w/ Frozen Throne.
7) defragmented drive.

At this point, I have a brand new setup using proven hardware and nothing related to SP2 (which I don't think is the problem, but just to make sure). Just SP1, DX 9.0b, video drivers, etc...

I prayed to the powers that, cranked up WC3:FT, and after a few seconds, here's what I saw (attached).

Wait a sceond... have you installed the pathces for wc3-tft? Either go here:
http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=mwr0642p
Or open the game and go to multiplayer and log on to battle.net the patches will install automatically.
And here's 9 pages of what may be going wrong if you get that error.
http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=awr0649p
And if you can't get it to work after that contact blizzard here. They have really good support.
http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=eSupport000

Guess what...upon testing a friend's NVidia GeForce ti4600 in my box, I took out my ATI card and 2 of the 512 sticks of ram (damn hook on the AGP port)...worked fine. Played Warcraft 3 flawlessly.

So I put the ATI card back in with only one of the 512 sticks o' ram. Played WC3 flawlessly. I test that stick in each memory slot; flawless gaming. I put in a second stick now that I know the ports are good and so is that one stick. Flawless. I put in the third stick of ram. At this point, I'm back at my original starting point as far as hardware goes. Flawless. No problems, issues, crashes, freezes, nothing...

Next time I'm just taking everything out, rofl...

And yes, you can install XP fresh and register upwards of 6 times in a period of 4 days! I did it! But my hardware never changed so I think that's why I was able to register that many times.